by Cliff McNish
Three weeks. It took me that long to make myself a rubbishy home in a derelict warehouse, and get in well enough with one of the bigger gangs to be left alone. Susie helped there. I’d have been lost without that special girl. The gang she belonged to let me live close to the south-east tip in relative safety.
‘But what are you doing staying here every night?’ Susie kept asking me. ‘You’re mad! You must be mad! Only the biggest gangs leave anyone here at night, and never on their own.’
I couldn’t answer her. Maybe I was mad – an insane boy. Why not? I began to think so. Wasn’t it mad to wait endlessly for something to turn up in this desolate place? Wasn’t that, after all, exactly the sort of thing a crazy person might do?
All I knew for certain was that apart from being hungry all the time, I was scared. My new warehouse home scared me most of all. An abandoned warehouse is a frightening place at night, let me tell you. It wasn’t so much the dark as the animals. Rodents mostly. I couldn’t keep them out because the warehouse’s iron doors simply would not shut. I spent days, just trying to close those doors! For a while my entire life was focused on it.
Despite this, after only a week or so I had a sort of daily routine established. In the morning, after chasing out the rodents, I’d head straight for the tips. Because I wasn’t any good at finding food, I usually spent all day looking for it. Evening would creep up on me eventually, and then, if I was lucky, I might get a sunset. Sunset over the rubbish dumps: a strange sight, but useful, because when the sun is low it glints better on metal foil and plastic wrappings containing food. After a last scavenge in the dying light, I’d head back to the warehouse, to be greeted by whatever four-legged guests fancied dropping by. Then – darkness. I dreaded the nights, I really did. When you are genuinely hungry, when you haven’t eaten properly for days, you can’t sleep. It’s impossible. And I was always freezing, too. I’d lie there, my stomach gnawing at me, shivering under a dirty edge of canvas, trying not to listen to the animals scurrying about.
What on earth was I doing here!
I think it was in my second week that I began to hear a noise. Not the sound of kids, or the skittery-squeak of animals; I was used to those. This noise was entirely different. It was like a distant roar. Why I called it that I couldn’t say, but all night I would hear that roar. And in the dawn it would still be there underlying the singing of birds, and endlessly, throughout the day, when it was quiet enough, I would hear it.
A month. That’s how long I waited in my cosy new home with my mouse and rat friends, growing steadily filthier and skinnier in Coldharbour. And every night I’d look up through the high broken windows of the warehouse, still expecting to see something remarkable. Perhaps a wondrous blotting out of stars. Perhaps someone who would drag open the heavy doors and show me the reason I was here.
But I saw nothing, and the arrival of each day brought the same dreary routines. The truth was that I’d found a way to exist in Coldharbour, but that’s literally all I was doing – scrapping along the tips, trying to keep myself together while avoiding the worst of the gangs.
And then, one morning, I felt compelled to go north. I left all the hard-won safety of my warehouse behind, and on some mad impulse carried my canvas blanket to a place nearer the river estuary. I didn’t know this part of Coldharbour at all. Here I had nothing: no place to stay, no food, no rights negotiated with the gangs to be in their territories.
And then – well, then I met the twins.
I was scavenging as usual that morning. Without being too conspicuous, I’d brought all the food I could carry with me as I headed north. After it ran out, I had to take my chances with the unknown gangs cruising around the north tips. Actually, this was my second visit there. The first time three lads had chased me off with a warning. The next time I entered their territory I knew I could expect a beating. Nothing personal – they just didn’t want anyone they didn’t know in their territory, as simple as that. But hunger never leaves you alone for long. So, the very next morning, there I was again, tramping around the tip like an idiot, hoping I wouldn’t be seen. I chose dawn this time. The refuse lorries didn’t usually turn up till later in the day, so it was the safest hour to scavenge.
When I arrived there were only a few others around. Most were single kids, hoping for something that might have been dumped late yesterday onto the household tips. They watched with distaste as I passed by, making my way onto the closest food tip. I ignored their comments, and started sorting through the usual leftovers.
But when I saw the twins I stopped. Well, we all did. Nobody looks quite normal wandering about in Coldharbour’s mud, but the twins made everyone stare.
They were the weirdest creatures I had ever seen. I didn’t notice their faces at first, just the way they moved. Initially, I thought their motion was like an animal, until I realized it was stranger than that; they moved like insects. Each of them had skinny arms and legs that were thrust out sideways, beetle-fashion. They ran about that way, on all fours, their weight balanced on the tips of their toes and fingers, bodies low, bellies almost touching the ground.
As I approached, I heard them making little interested sounds and huffs.
Then they raised their faces, and I was shocked: they were girls, clearly twins. Identical-length thick red hair dangled over their bent knees as they turned this way and that. But here was the most shocking thing of all: everything about the way they moved should have made them appear grotesque, but oddly it didn’t, because they were clean. Everyone in Coldharbour picks up a layer of grime within days – you can’t avoid it – but the twins were spotless. They had freckles. You could see dimples. Pretty faces, too: delicate chins, slightly upturned noses, clear green eyes. I could almost imagine the same girls sitting at a dining table, politely unfolding their napkins.
But the way they moved! Gazing at them, I suppose they might have been half-ordinary girls once, but what were they now? They had surprisingly good white teeth, well maintained, none missing. I noticed those teeth straight away because both girls were smiling. They were smiling – and looking right at me.
All the other kids nearby backed away. Scrapper kids aren’t easily driven off, but what were these scary things? I started to retreat, too, but as I did so the twins made a noise like a whelp. With difficulty, as if they had nearly forgotten how, they stood upright. They raised themselves up and just stood there more humanly, wavering a little, looking directly at me as if I ought to be impressed.
I saw then what they were wearing: dresses, or the remains of them. Yellowish ones, the same kind, with small pink flowers, as if at one time a proud mother had wanted to show them off. Whatever attractiveness those clothes had once possessed was long gone. The dresses were clean enough, but such a patchwork of repairs! The girls, however, obviously didn’t care what I thought of their clothes. Both of them were smiling cheerfully at me, their hands pressed together, hugging each other.
Without taking my eyes off them, I took a few steps back. The twins glanced at each other. Then they dropped again on all fours – and ran at me.
God, they were fast! Flattened out, scuttling on their fingertips and toenails, they reached me in seconds. None of the other kids came to help me, of course; not here. As the twins approached I stiffened, wanting to run, but how could I escape anything that moved so quickly? I decided to stay still, pulling in my arms in case they wanted a bite.
The twins circled me, nodding to each other, sniffing merrily away as if they’d found their mummy or something.
‘Go away!’ I shouted as loudly as I could. ‘I’ve got no food for you.’
‘You got food?’ One of them was speaking. Can you believe it? Words.
‘No,’ I insisted. ‘No food. I haven’t got any. What do you think I’m doing here at the tip? No food.’ I emptied the pockets of my jeans.
One of the girls smiled mischievously. ‘You ain’t here for food,’ she said.
‘No, you ain’t, matey,’ the other said
. ‘Take uz ’ome wiv you.’
‘What?’ I looked at them. They were grinning non-stop. One of the girls turned in a tight circle and whooped at a cloud.
‘If I ’ad a tail, I’d be wagging away,’ she said.
‘If I ’ad a rope, I’d go out and play,’ the other said.
Flipping heck! I thought. They had both settled at ease beside me, like lapdogs waiting for a lap. ‘Just let me go!’ I said. ‘Get out of my way!’ I looked round for a weapon – or a place to run.
‘Take uz ’ome,’ one of the girls said again.
‘What do you mean, home?’ Would they be less likely to bite me if I talked to them? Or perhaps, after all, they just needed to be told where north and south were. ‘Are you lost, is that it?’ I asked. ‘You lost out here? Can’t find your own home?’ And I couldn’t help thinking: what outrageous family might they belong to? Even in Coldharbour, I couldn’t imagine a gang that would have them.
The twins had tucked their feet under their dress rags. They were sitting on the balls of their feet, looking thoughtfully up at me.
One of them said, ‘If I ’ad an orange, I’d peel the skin.’
The other said, ‘If I ’ad a nut, I’d suck it in.’
I just looked at them like the crazy things they were. ‘Where is your home?’ I asked, trying to get some sense out of them. ‘Do you live here, on the tip itself?’ Then, very slowly, ‘Do – you – live – here?’
The twins seemed to find this hilarious. They started laughing and rubbing my feet with their fingers. ‘Take – uz – to – your – ’ome,’ one of them copied me, as if I was a nitwit. She carefully formed the shape with her mouth. ‘Your home.’
‘My home? What?’ I haven’t got a home here, I thought – or not one I’d dare take you back to. The girls stayed beside me, clearly expecting something.
‘We found ’im, all right,’ one said, kissing the other excitedly on the cheek.
‘Found who?’ I asked.
‘Found you!’ she hooted, slapping the ground. The other one hugged her, deliriously happy.
I had no idea what they were talking about, and at that moment I was too scared to care. Obviously I couldn’t outrun them, so what else could I do? They could speak at least. Keep chatting to them, I thought, until you can work out how to get away.
‘What … are your names?’ I asked.
They exchanged glances.
‘Emily,’ one said, standing and taking a shaky bow.
‘Freda,’ said the other, curtsying.
I gingerly held my hand out to shake theirs – keeping my fingers well away from their mouths.
‘Pleased … to meet you, Emily and Freda,’ I said, trying to smile.
They grinned and shook formally back. After that we fidgeted a bit, like any other newly introduced people, and I wondered what to say next that would keep them calm. I couldn’t think of anything. Then one of the girls put her hand on my leg and urged me in the gentlest of voices, ‘Go on, take uz ’ome wiv you. Go on.’
‘I haven’t got a home here,’ I said.
Amazingly, she started crying. Then the other one joined in with her. They both put their thin hands over their eyes. ‘Take uz, please,’ they wailed, their whole bodies shuddering, arms around each other in a sisterly way.
I could see they weren’t so dangerous now, but I was still afraid. I tried to step over them. When they clung to my legs I half-kicked them off, and, surprisingly, they let go. As I walked away both girls squealed, a piteous sound. I strode off, looking back every few seconds. They came silently after me.
‘Get lost!’ I shouted, feeling bolder now.
They merely lowered their faces and continued to follow.
Other kids were watching us from the edges of the tip. Some of them had picked up sticks or taken out their personal weapons – just in case the twins decided to take an interest in them. I found a stone heavy enough to do some damage, turned around, and raised my arm. ‘You see this?’ I yelled. ‘Clear off! Go on! Go back to wherever you came from!’
They just looked at me and smiled their smiles.
I strode away, and this time didn’t look back for several minutes. All the while I could hear their stealthy, quick movements behind me. Eventually I stopped again. If I actually took them back to the place I’d slept the previous couple of nights, would I ever be rid of them? I showed them the stone. ‘This is my last warning!’ I growled. When they continued to follow, I threw it. I missed – deliberately – and they laughed.
‘Ah, poor laddie,’ one said. ‘If I’d a stone, I’d throw it better.’
‘If I’d a stick, I’d whack it harder,’ the other said.
Flipping lunatics! Everything I had learned in Coldharbour told me to keep away from them. ‘I’ll do it!’ I warned, picking up another stone and jabbing my arm forward. ‘I will!’
‘Do it, then!’ one of them wailed – and they dashed towards me.
I threw the stone, and this time in my panic I hit one of the girls on the shoulder. I expected her to run off – or maybe jump at me – but do you know what she did? She just looked at me, her lips quivering. ‘Take uz ’ome!’ she begged, her big eyes wide and solemn. ‘You do it. You takes uz wiv you.’ They both stared at me as if I was the fount of all human kindness, as if I couldn’t possibly have meant to harm them.
‘We ain’t going away!’ the one called Freda said, her voice shaking with emotion. ‘Chuck your stones, but we ain’t leaving!’
I looked at them both, their belly-buttons pressed to the ground, skinny arms and legs pointing trembling through their dress-ends, and realized something at last – they were as frightened as me of this place.
I stood there, my hands shaking.
The girls, encouraging each other, skittered closer. I raised my arm half-heartedly to hit them – but I couldn’t. How could I? And suddenly I felt something new for them: not fear, but pity. I felt a bit of pity. And that’s when I discovered the beginning of my gift. I felt it seep out of me and into them, just a trickle. I didn’t know what it was that first time, but I would later, when the twins explained it to me in their own way. It was a kind of beauty. That’s what they called it. Beauty. A comfort. Like everything the twins wanted or needed at that very moment: a feeling of security, of being accepted, of fireside warmth, of belonging. Someone who looked after them.
Family.
And I just stood there amazed. I didn’t understand what had happened. All I knew was that some small portion of my mind had gone into the twins – and whatever it was, they had been waiting for it. Afterwards, I just lingered at the edge of the tip, with a dab of rain starting up, surrounded at a distance by gang kids blinking at me, and with these two girls, snuffling and emotional and suddenly contented, nuzzling their faces against my legs, and all I could think was, ‘What am I?’
Three
the coolness of water
MILO
Milo staggered away from home, holding the side of his head.
In the last hour most of his hair had fallen out. A single clump remained near his ear. Or was he holding it on? Yes, he was – his hand held it there. He removed his fingers and the last strands fell off, scattering and drifting away on the wind.
I’m not scared, he realized. Shouldn’t I be scared? Surely I should be scared! But he felt no fear whatsoever. He stopped to feel his scalp, exploring the bumps that had always been hidden. The smoothness was astonishing: like something unreal, not his head at all.
What are you doing? he thought. This is ridiculous! Go back home. Mum’ll be worried sick. It’s not fair to her. But he wasn’t ready to return home yet. Without understanding why, a terrific exhilaration drove him to run and run and run.
Finally he stopped. His feet had carried him up several streets. He went to the highest point of land overlooking the town and gazed around.
What was he looking for?
His new eyes guided him. They had undergone further changes. Each one could now rotate
in separate directions. Milo felt awed as he set them loose, to decide for themselves where they wished to look. Both eyes swivelled northwards, towards the fields that opened out beyond the town. There was an isolated farmhouse in that direction.
Something drew Milo there, and he ran towards it.
When he arrived, uncertain what to do next, he hid outside under the kitchen window. A man’s voice was coming from inside the house – a dad speaking to his daughter. Milo found himself listening to the girl’s voice. He heard her name. Helen. Her name was Helen. For a few minutes he simply crouched under the window, fascinated by her.
There was a special quality about this girl, but what?
He listened to her for a little longer, trying to unlock the secret. Then he ran in confusion from the house. What was he supposed to do now? More changes were about to take place inside him. Milo sensed them, without knowing what they would be. I have to get through the remainder of the day, he thought. I have to find somewhere to stay. Where can I go? Where should I go to be safe?
His eyes tugged him south. They plotted a path towards the river, showing him the muddy spaces of Coldharbour beyond. Coldharbour? Why there? With the remarkable things happening to him, surely Coldharbour was the last place he could expect help if he needed it. Even so, Milo trusted his eyes and headed steadily that way.
When he reached the river, he made for an empty stretch of the bank. For a while he simply lay there, feeling his body changing in subtle ways. Then the hunger pangs returned. It was the same pressing need to eat that had overwhelmed him in the dining room at home.
But there’s no food here, he thought desperately. There’s nothing!
He was wrong. His eyes had drawn him to the one location where there was enough to satisfy his appetite – the food tips of Coldharbour. Milo lurched towards the nearest dump. His improved eyes discovered food in places other children would never have found it. For nearly an hour he gorged himself out of boxes and packets and bags. He did not stop until the gnawing pain ended. Afterwards he opened his mouth and drank from the river, a long, long draught. Then he waited for something to happen.